Perhaps one of the most frequently asked questions by sales and marketing teams is how they can improve the quality of their leads – the problem being that most of their leads make it some way down the sales funnel, consuming precious sales time, without ever generating a sale. By Marketingsherpa’s measure that number is a staggering 73% on average, bringing the efficiency of their sales pipeline down to just 27%.
While 100% efficiency in a marketing and sales funnel is an unrealistic pipe dream, improvements can be made to the marketing and sales process that drive efficiency steadily higher. Here are three proven ways to help you improve the quality of the leads that you hand off to your sales organization:
Allocate marketing spend toward higher performing campaigns
Marketers that measure campaign performance are able to more effectively and efficiently accomplish goals. The following 5 steps can help marketers accomplish that, regardless of any system they might use. Whether they seek higher lead volumes, more leads of a particular type, or more revenue or profit per campaign, variations on these steps can help marketers accomplish their goals:
Set up a system to track the lead source for all leads:
Your leads start their journey toward finding you with paid and unpaid channels, which might consist of your website, CPC ads, email campaigns, trade shows, social media, referrals, and more. Whenever you receive a lead or list of leads, take a note of what the lead’s source was. Troop.Works automatically stores the source of each lead when they come in from web forms, social channels, or emails.
Add up the total cost of each campaign for a specific period:
Sum the fixed and variable costs associated with each campaign. For instance if you were running a 20% discount announcement promoted through direct mails, email, social, and CPC ads, you might have to hire a copywriter and graphic designer to create the content at a fixed cost. Afterward, printing, postage charges, email campaign, and CPC ad costs will vary based on the number of leads you target, and clicks you receive.
Add up total revenue brought in by leads from each campaign for the same period:
For each campaign, sum the total revenue brought in by its leads, for the same period for which you calculated the costs.
Get more qualified leads and lead data with web-to-lead forms:
The Force gives a Jedi the ability to read minds. Marketers, on the other hand, have to ask questions to know what’s in a lead’s mind. Web-to-lead forms are one way to capture data about your leads on their journey to being a customer, and here are some best practices for optimizing their engagement rates:
Get rid of unwanted fields:
A study has found that web forms with 5 fields has better conversion rate than the ones with 9 fields. Eliminate fields that does not bring any value at that stage of buying. For instance, get rid of postal address field when you are not shipping anything to that address right away. Asking for phone numbers causes 5% dip in conversion rate; instead provide a number for them to contact you.
Ask the right questions:
Your web form should gather enough information required to qualify a lead. Ask for Name and Email address for further follow-ups. Ask for Company name and website to research and gauge how your product fits into their company’s needs. Asking for the role helps you identify decision makers.
Guarantee privacy:
Leads don’t like to be spammed or want their information shared with others. Assure them that the information they share will not be misused.
Nurture leads with personalized engagement
According to Forester Research, companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads. There is, however, no one-size-fits-all lead nurturing campaign that marketers can use.
